A year ago, Carol and I had the pleasure of going to Moldova with a Missions Trip from Neighborhood Assembly of God, in Helena, MT. While in Moldova, we worked on the foundation of a church in a town called Bubuieci. This church has been meeting in a house because they had no building of their own. While we were there, with us, there was no room in the church, so they brought all of the pews outside onto the driveway where we had a great service. You can see more about that HERE, HERE, and HERE. I chronicled our trip to Moldova, and it can be seen HERE.

We received the following update on the Bubuieci church and wanted to share it with you. It is so good to see the church building coming along. God is so good!

– John

The Moldova MissioneNews October 2009

Building The Church in Bubuieci

The church in Bubuieci, Moldova is over 10 years old but has never had their own building to meet in. At the present time they meet in an overcrowded house. This past year a $40,000 piece of property was miraculously donated by a lady in the village. We are now working hard to build the church for this growing congregation.

In September, New Life Church from Princeton, Minnesota sent a team of 11 to help with the work in Bubuieci. In one week the team made a huge impact as the floor and the walls are being completed.

Bubuieci Church in May 2009…

Church family at the construction site in May, 2009.

Pastor Sasha and Troy discussing plans for the next phase of construction.

Bubuieci Church in September 2009…..

Many hands make light work Ann Jungers building the wall

Water break for BJ and Keith Pastor Sasha hard at work

Working on the floor for the future sanctuary

Heather Eugene

Hard working ladies from Princeton Visiting the elderly

Andrei and son Charles and Pastor Sasha

Thank you to leaders Jon and Ann Jungers and the whole Princeton team. And to their church in America for sending and supporting them.
We are workers together in God!

In October we have another team coming from Montana to continue work on the Bubuieci church. We are hoping to get the church far enough along so that they can begin meeting in their new facility before winter. As well, will be organizing a Convoy of Hope outreach during this time. Any gifts toward the work in Bubuieci will go a long way and be greatly appreciated.

We feel privileged to be partnering together with you as we build the church in Moldova. Your faithful prayers and support keep us going. God bless you!

To mail your support:If you would like to mail a contribution to the Darrin’s Moldova Mission, send support to: Assemblies of God World Missions, Account #2260974, 1445 N. Boonville Avenue, Springfield, MO, 65802-1894.

Carol and I went to Moldova on a short term missions trip last fall. We were required to get some vaccines, and a couple of them needed to be administered more than once. Now, six months later, we finally got our last Hepatitis A and Hepatitis B vaccines. This last dosage was required to insure we would be immunized for life. Does that mean we will be going on another another missions trip? We certainly hope we will. Please, pray that if the Lord opens an opportunity again, that we will be financially, bodily, and baby sitter ready to go. That is our hope!

I recently went to Moldova on a short term missions trip. While there, I found a nice 24 hour clock for sale. It is very large with the digits nearly two inches high, and the digits are very bright. Although, it is wired with a European 240 Volt plug on it, it works fine on our 120 Volt, 60 Hz power. It is a nice new addition to the Ham Radio Shack.

Carol works as a Kindergarten Teacher’s Aide. She missed almost two weeks of work because of our Missions Trip to Moldova. Her kids obviously missed her and greeted her with this big poster. Welcome Back Mrs. M.

The Long Day, Home, and SNOW???

Today we left Moldova for home. We had to get up about 4:00 a.m. Moldova time on Monday, March 13. This was 7:00 p.m. on Sunday evening in Montana. Reva and Brianon left on Sunday for Romania, to do some visiting there. Jerry and Ruth traveled from Moldova to Frankfurt with us where we left them to do a little vacationing. This left eleven total to return to Helena out of the fifteen members of our team. On our trip TO Moldova, we had several multi-hour layovers, on our trip back to Montana, we RAN from one flight to the next. It kept up awake if nothing else.

We were blessed to have Anne Graham Lotz on our flight from Moldova through to Cincinnati. She had a womens conference in Moldova while we were there. How cool is that? When we were waiting for our flight in Salt Lake City, we were blessed to come across Helena’s own Cissy Padget who was just coming back from Texas.

We arrived back in Helena about 9:30 p.m. after more than 24 hours of flying. Monday ended up being about 30 hours long for us before we found our own beds. We were even able to sleep considering our bodies were still on Moldova time where it was about 8:00 a.m. on Tuesday.

We heard that we had a lot of snow at home while we were away. We had about 18 inches of snow. Thank you Renee for taking care of our children while we were away and through the snow storms. Thank you to Dave and Hoss for taking care of and repair our vehicle that we left for Renee. Thank you Dave and Bob for plowing our driveway so Renee and our children could get home during the snow storm.

We also thank everyone for their prayers and messages while our team was in Moldova, as they were such an encouragement. Now that we are back, I will go back and correct all the spelling and grammatical errors in the posts for the past twelve days. Our children were quick to point them out to me. When Jerry and Ruth get back, I will post some of their pictures since they took many of them. Andy Raatz also has many on his web site and I will put a link to them on our main Moldova page at http://McDougallsHome.net/moldova .

We had a blessed time in Moldova, but it is very good to be back home.

Good Bye Moldova

Today we said good bye to our new friends at the church in Orhei where we worked at the first part of the week. There were a lot of hug, tears, and kisses. Our time here has gone by quickly in one sense, and in another, it seems like we have been here forever. It is very mixed emotions since we long for home, our church, and our own beds, but in another way, we are saddened to leave our very good friends that we have worked with, prayed with, ate with, and lived with.

We had some time in the after noon free so Carol and I (John) went down to the open market that is about a block away from the Pentecostal Union, and were utterly amazed. I had in my mind that it would be kind of like the straw market in the Bahamas where people would be selling their crafts, and touristy stuff. This was not so here. This was the Wal-Mart of Moldova. There are hundreds of little shelters that open up for business everyday selling anything from car parts, to toiletries, to food, to clothing of every kind, and believe it or not, furniture like beds, and couches, to plumbing, to custom kitchen cabinets. Each one puts everything in their little box at night and locks it up. In the morning, they haul everything out again. We spent a couple of hours there and barely scratched the surface.

This evening, we had church service here at the Pentecostal Union. It was called, International Church and was in English. People from all over the area attend, some from the American Embasy, Convoy of Hope, Missionaries from different denominations, to visitors in the area that speak English. It was nice to worship in English again.

We are now packing up to leave. We leave at 5:30 tomorrow morning and will take a day to fly back home. Thanks to all who have been praying for us and the team, and for your notes of encouragement. We appreciate them. Tomorrow, we will have to say good bye to the rest of our friends. It has been a good trip, and the more we tried to bless others, the more we got blessed. Good bye Moldova, we will miss you!

P.S. I did not have time to edit the photos because we were busy packing. What you see is what you get. When I get back home, I will clear out the junkie ones, delete duplicates, and take sideways ones and put them upright. 🙂

Good Bye Bubieci

Today, we worked once again at the future church at Bubieci. We gained good ground in our work, and we gained good ground on developing relationships with the Bubieci church. The teamwork was amazing, from the youngest children to the oldest adults. We were not quite to the point of pouring cement, but it is setup up so with not to much further work, cement can be poured. Click the picture on the left to see a lot of photos for the day.

The church gave us another wonderful lunch. After lunch, we all (Moldovans and Americans) gathered around Sasha (sp?) the pastor and prayed for him and the church there. Prayer time was very powerful, and we know that God has good plans for them. We are excited to see the finished church. We then continued to work until quitting time which was at 3:30 today. There were a lot of tearful good-byes, hugs, and kisses. We truely developed good relationships with them.

Today, was our last work day in Moldova. After we got back to the Pentecostal Union, we got cleaned up and dressed up for a very nice dinner at a fine restaurant. It was a good night.

After we got back from dinner, we once again played cards. We also celebrated Brianon’s 18th birthday, and Sharon’s birthday. Happy birthday Brianon and Sharon.

The day was filled with good things, and it is good to settle down for a good nice sleep.

Recycled Nails, Rebar, and Concrete

Today was a busy day at a community called Bubieci. We prepared for the day by doing devotions, praying, and having a good breakfast.

As explained in a previous post, the church at Bubieci is meeting in a house that is being sold. Also, there is not much room and when there are guests, they carry all of the pews outside to the drive way and have service there.

As all buildings are built here, this one will also be built with concrete and limestone blocks. Our job here is to wire up rebar and pour columns between large concrete blocks that are laid in place by a crane. The concrete blocks are over 15 inches thick, and this is close to how thick the walls will be when they are built above the concrete blocks.

Everyone from our team was involved in one way or another with the process today. We did not have nails or any new lumber, so many of the ladies, and girls from the church, disassembled lumber, recycling the nails and straightening them all so we could use them again. We are promised that we will have nails tomorrow.

Placing the concrete blocks in place was interesting. A layer of concrete would be shoveled on the top of existing blocks, then the crane would lift the next layer of blocks in place with men on each side making sure the line of the wall was (somewhat) straight. See the pictures to see what went on. The crane had to come into the construction zone to place some blocks near the rear of the building. The water table under the earth was down about a foot. If a hole was dug, it would fill up with water. When the crane drove in, it sank up to its axles. When the outriggers were put into place, they slowly sank. We had to build up the areas for the outriggers and place a path of rocks for the wheels to drive in on. Finally, it was stable enough to lift the concrete blocks. After the last block was laid, the driver gunned it and blew blue smoke everywhere, and tore his way out of the mud.

The Bubieci church supplied a nice lunch for us at the construction site. They are very nice people, and about half dozen or so helped all day long.

The weather today was beautiful. It was probably above 70 degrees, very sunny, and no wind. A slight breeze would have been nice because while we worked, it was quite hot. We have been watching the weather back in Montana and noticed that there is a “winter storm warning” alert as I type this. We hope and pray that all is well there.

We were able to get about half of the columns rebarred and wired, with forms set in place. We hope to have the second half done tomorrow. We all come home tire today, but we still have enough “umph” to play some cards before we turn in for the night.

Thank you all who are praying for us. We appreciate you and your prayers. Thanks, also to you who have been sending us notes of encouragement. Those are the extra little tidbits that help keep us going. If you would like to send us a note, you can click the “Send Us A Message” button on the column on the right side of the main Moldova page at http://McDougallsHome.net/moldova . We love and miss you all.

A Day Off

Today, we took the day off. It was deemed that we would take the day that has the worse weather of the next three days because we need to do concrete work on the two nicest days. That is good news since we were quite tired from the last few days of intense work.

Besides having a day off when we need it, we woke today with our water working. Yeah, what a nice shower we had.

We started our day with the devotional time spent reflecting all the things that were done yesterday. See yesterday’s post to see what we did on that busy day. We had at least four different ministry opportunities yesterday.

After another great breakfast, we boarded vehicles and went to Old Orhei. We visited several old ruins, some dating as far back as the 1300’s. We toured an old monastery that was carved out of limestone completely underground. Click the picture on the left so see photos of this marvel and other very interesting sites at Old Orhei.

On the way back from Old Orhei, we visited a church in Butuceni, which is one of several churches in the area that is pastored by the same man. We met a few of the ladies from this church while working on the Orhei church, and one of them showed us around the Butuceni church. We gave her a ride into Chisinau for a class she was taking. We had the opportunity to share with each other, and show a lot of photos to each other.

We took a tour of downtown Chisinau. Chisinau is the capital city of Moldova and has around a million people living there. There is a stark contrast between the typical country Moldovan and most of those living in the city. In my opinion, it seems like when they gained freedom from the Soviet Union, they went complete bonkers. Most of the people wear black leather looking clothes. The girls wear several inch high heals, with short short mini skirts or overly tight pants. The music and media is just crazy with the stuff. The traditional people still wear scarves, long skirts, and wool socks. It seems that the people went from being slaves to communism to slaves of the world. Either way, they sure need Jesus to give them true freedom.

We were brought to a small very smoky Greek restaurant for lunch and had Gyros. They were good, but we were glad to get out and get some fresh air. While at the restaurant, we were privelaged to meet Troy and Heidi Darren who are also missionaries in Moldova. We had a good discussion about the problem of trafficked women in Moldova.

When lunch was done, we walked down to an area in downtown Chisinau that had an open air market. The market consisted mostly of art and Moldova memorabilia. We spent a couple of hours there with some members of our team wheeling and dealing with the different vendors selling their wares. It was fun, but neither Carol nor I (John) are any good at wheeling and dealing.

At the appointed time, we gathered once again, and went to take a tour of the “House Home of Hope”. “The House Home of Hope” is due to open up in a week or two. Wow, it was nice! The House Home of Hope is a long term home for trafficked women that escape from their captors. It is hoped that this will be a safe place where they can be loved, healed, and restored. We had the privilege of anointing and praying for the rooms in the house. It was a powerful time in the presence of the Lord. He loves to restore the broken and forgotten of society. We will hear many miraculous stories from the House Home of Hope in the future.

We needed to stop by Andy and Nancy Raatz home to exchange some tools that we will need for our concrete work tomorrow. For our evening culinary delight, we went to… “McDonald’s”. Yes, good ole’ American junk food. At home, McDonald’s is very near to the bottom of the list of my favorite places to eat. Today, it was quite high on the list and it was good to eat ordinary food for a change. We were told ahead of time that this was not like our McDonald’s at home. While the menu is the same, (other than the beer they served) everyone dressed up to go to McDonald’s. It is like luxury dining for the Moldovans.

After dinner we joyfully went back to the Pentecostal Union where we played a good game of cards while we wound down. It is now past midnight and we are due for another early day tomorrow. It was a good day, but we didn’t get much rest in it. The fellowship and fun we had made it worth it.